


i just needed someone around.

by Prettything_uglylie



Series: the leaflets that fall out when you shake the book [7]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bisexual Clarke Griffin, Canon Compliant, Coming Out, Drabble Sequence, F/F, Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Lexa's Death Scene TW, Male-Female Friendship, Minor Bellamy Blake/John Murphy, Minor Emori/John Murphy (The 100), Pain, Pansexual John Murphy (The 100), Quick drabble, mentioned for lexa bellamy and emori, or at least the beginnings of this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:14:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25670416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prettything_uglylie/pseuds/Prettything_uglylie
Summary: "I'm sorry for your loss Clarke, I - " He swallows and she doesn't have a moment of doubt that he means this, "I'm so sorry you had to lose the woman you love."
Relationships: Clarke Griffin & John Murphy, Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Series: the leaflets that fall out when you shake the book [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1415044
Comments: 6
Kudos: 42





	i just needed someone around.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! So this was a small piece I have thought about graphically for awhile now but was finally spurred into writing!
> 
> this is for you, lucy! ♡

"Are you..." he starts and Clarke can't look at him. His voice wavers and hesitates and he doesn't sound very sure of himself at all - it's strange to see him here and connect him to the Murphy from camp, it's strange to lose Lexa and feel both everything and nothing, it's strange, it's all strange. His swallow is loud, "Are you okay?" 

She doesn't know what response to give him here. She doesn't feel alright, her heart is heavy with the idea that she may never see Lexa again, heady with guilt over a bullet that was meant for her, she doesn't feel okay at all. But she doesn't know _this_ Murphy that well and doesn't know if he, like the viper he was back at camp, is looking for her weak spots as well.

She glances up, not remembering when she curled in on herself against the footboard of the bed she and Lexa had made love in not hours ago. It must have happened in the frenzy of everything, of Lexa being shot, of learning there was _A.I_ \- as Murphy had called it - inside of the woman she loved and of Titus carrying her body from the room, leaving her and Murphy behind locked in the room.

Prior to all of this strangely short time, before _Wanheda_ and everything else truly began, back on the dropship, she would have been scared to be left alone with him but when she looks at him, his icy-blue eyes are the color of the sky after a rainstorm and he just looks _young_. Clarke had forgotten to ask how old he was when they had landed and the idea that he is younger than she presumed him to be creeps in her mind and gets stuck. He picks at the nails that still haven't grown back nervously and she's struck by how little time has gone by in such a long time. There's still a red tie wrapped around his wrist. 

"C'mere." She murmurs because she is so tired of seeing this boy wrapped in red pain, in red paint, in blood, in hurt. She wants to help for a moment, to remind her hands that they can be something other than a place where blood lies and herself that she can do something other than getting the people she cares about killed. 

He hesitates in his step towards her and Clarke wonders if he's scared of her, if _wherever_ he's been for so long has heard of Wanheda - she hopes not. It takes a moment for her to read in his face that he's not scared of her but _for_ her. It hits her like a blow. 

He stands beside her suddenly, his body stiff and she wonders with little hints of Doctor creeping in, if he had endured his days of torture that stiffly - if he had, he would have been in more medical wear-and-tear than they had thought. If he hadn't, well, she was sure the boy she knew back at camp wouldn't have told her. 

He stands beside her, on his feet, like a weird power dynamic but she doesn't know if that's his intention or if it's just a thing men do naturally. It reminds her of Bellamy and she misses him right away, knows that he would be good at comforting her here with his big-brother hands. 

She wonders if Murphy knows how to comfort people, wonders if all he's been taught is to hurt before being struck by the reminder that people only know what they've been taught. 

She wonders if anyone has ever comforted Murphy. 

Her hands reach up on their own, about to pull at the red tie but her mind alludes it too much to the red seatbelts they had strung him up with and she pulls, instead, at his jacket. 

He looks at her, face confused but strangely open. He doesn't carry any of the sharpness in the eyes or the sneer he used to that would cut like a knife before he pulled his real knife anymore. They've all changed. 

He falls to his knees. 

It steals her breath and hits her like an execution. Like he's tired. Like he's religious in the way few were on the Ark. 

She tries to think about anything other than Lexa but every time she blinks, her green eyes are still staring up at her as black blood leaks from her mouth. Murphy's a good enough distraction, a close enough to be like having one of the delinquents before her - she thinks she'd want Monty, with his kind eyes and gentle reassurances but no-bullshit attitude, or Harper with her kind hopefulness and her bubbly personality that makes her a little loopy for the delinquent girl - and someone who understands Polis and Grounders just as well. 

Clarke's hands are gentle as they pull his wrist into her lap. She watches his face as he watches her hands. She checks his face for any sides of discomfort as she pulls the tie from his wrist, not having expected it to be as tight as it was, cutting into the frayed flesh, but grateful the actual knot was easy to undo. 

She expects the knot was easy to undo for Titus' plan. After all, if the gun had gone off and killed her, it would have only been a blink of time until people came racing to see what it was. But there was no Heda coming to look or no body that belonged to her that stains the floor or hope that there was anything less. 

She misses Wells, misses Finn, misses her dad but she grieves Lexa. She grieves Lexa and she is sure that she will for the rest of her life, will cry until the lake runs dry and even then, she will break new dams in her face to weep for her lost love again. 

When she begins to cry, Murphy brings both of his arms up to tangle her into an embrace. It isn't a hug, no, his arms are slightly too awkward, one torture-broken hand comes up to cup the back of her head and the other rubs a gentle circle between her shoulder blades. 

The red rope flutters between them both and falls to the ground away from them, a forgotten action. 

They shift after some inordinate amount of time, enough time to hurt Murphy's knees because between her sobs, she hears him grit out _Princess, I'm not trying to be a dick but if we don't move, my kneecaps are going to fall apart._ and she had laughed between sobs and he had smiled gently. 

He shifts them, her body feeling smashed into the floor carelessly like a glass plate and the whole world is screaming 'Opa!' at the most graceless falling Wanheda could have ever had. But it feels like Murphy's picking up the pieces. 

It feels good, he feels good, being held and comforted like this and she wonders how long it's been since she's truly been comforted either. Clarke swings her leg over him while she cries into his jacket, into his neck to feel the warmth of the skin there, and sometimes when she looks at it through bleary eyes, she thinks she can still see the choke-marks there. 

He has been whispering stuff reassurances to her, generic shushing sounds and a few _it's going to be okay_ but Clarke only realizes he has when she notices the noise stop. He clings her tightly suddenly and she hasn't completely realized that she doesn't mind, doesn't fear him, when he whispers brokenly, "I don't know what I would do if I lost Emori." 

She doesn't know who Emori is and the thought feels weird to her, that Murphy could have someone he cares for so deeply - not a survivor's move, she thinks - and she has no idea who that person is. She sniffs and then because her eyes and nose still feel wet, sniffs again, "Who's Emori?" 

His smile is private, fits strangely on his face like he isn't used to it but she also likes it right away. The glow in his eyes happiness is something she's so not used to from him that it makes her head tilt back a little further. He whispers like it's a secret, "My girlfriend." 

She arches an eyebrow and fixes her leg between his knees so it touches the floor through her dress, he lets her, gives her the room. "I thought you had feelings for Bellamy." 

He chokes, laughs nervously, eyes wide then tries to collect himself and chokes again. It makes her smile, she's never imagined Murphy flabbergasted and it makes her a little fond of him, he's cute like this. His eyes settle on something a little sadder than she's seen since she was standing over Lexa's body, an event that seems both a hundred years ago and five seconds ago. "I, uh... did, yeah." 

She nods, her face falling into something less teasing and she asks, "So, you like both?" 

There's a weird connection there, not romantic like when Lexa and her would gaze at each other or sexually compelling like with Finn. The buzz of friendship like with her and Bellamy fills her. There's a bizarre amount of understanding here and she wonders for the first time how they could have been so quick to look down on Murphy when they all had done the same, if not with more bodies found. 

He shrugs, one of those bruised shoulders moving in a display that is supposed to be casual but carries ten times the weight to it, "I like _all_." He starts and specifies before explaining, voice falling into something more hushed, "Did you ever read those sexuality books on the Ark? You remember pansexual?" 

She can picture the pages in-between her fingers, late at night as she read and read and reread and wondered _is this what I am?_ feeling both like she was handed a key after picking at the lock with her fingernails and like she was putting herself in the line of fire. She imagines that same book between his fingers and she can't. She can't imagine a time where Murphy has known peace - the thought saddens her. 

Clarke remembers the meaning of the word more than reading it in the book, remembers Monty mentioning it to her like a passing wink when they had been walking home from Mount Weather and she had asked quietly about his protective and craving watch on both Miller and Harper. 

"I do," She confirms and it sparks a smile from him she hadn't expected to feel good in her gut. He nods twice, two careful little times and she wonders if he notices the intervals in which he tends to do things.

He confirms softly, "I'm that." 

"I'm bisexual." She admits and she's startled by the words, doesn't remember having agreed to say them but it feels safe here. It's only the second time she's ever said it aloud, the first being to Wells and he had nodded understandingly and hugged her with his big hands and god, she misses him so much. Her eyes must water or spill over because Murphy's thumbs come to wipe the tears gently from her cheeks while also cupping her face in his hands. 

"Oops," he teases, voice a little lighter and acting as though he had dropped something or those were his fault and the memory of the day she had accused this boy, _this_ Murphy, of murdering her best friend stabs her sharper in the gut than Murphy's knife ever could have. 

It's a weird moment, she thinks as she realizes that being this close she can see the lifted skin where the scars had been prominent on the side of his face when they had found Finn's massacre and his blue eyes had just screamed a hopeless _Oh God_ but now his eyes are gentle with her, the color of the sky and no sharp squint. There is a moment where Clarke connects the two boys together and realizes they are both _Murphy,_ they are just Murphy at different times in their lives. 

He's gotten older and so has she - now she's Wanheda and he's Murphy, unassuming and too easily forgotten by their own people _Murphy._ It strikes her as weird all of a sudden that most people would clock her as the more dangerous of the two of them. 

She drops her head on his shoulder this time, not buried into his jacket or staring at his neck but at the side of his face as the light of the candles Lexa adored flicks off his features. He's attractive, she realizes suddenly but not in the way it had struck her with Lexa, no, just a factual understanding like her thoughts with Octavia or Bellamy. He's attractive in a little bit of a bizarre way, she thinks as her brain registers that scrapes of blood seem at home on his cheeks. 

"I'm sorry for your loss Clarke, I - " He swallows and she doesn't have a moment of doubt that he means this, "I'm so sorry you had to lose the woman you love." 

She doesn't want to think about, does not want to come to the realization that the woman she loves will never walk in the room again or will never look at her with that precise turn of her head and those green eyes that had felt encompassing and heady in all ways possible. She doesn't want Lexa to be dead so she doesn't let herself recognize his condolences. Instead, she says, "Tell me about Emori." 

His face flickers or the candlelight or something but he looks a little happier, a little head-over-heels in love with this faceless woman Clarke can't picture.

He tells her stories in a hushed tone, voice fond and fluctuating and a little care-free until she falls asleep, feeling surprisingly warm. When she wakes up the next morning, he is asleep but his hand is still petting her hair. 

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you liked this! it was written quickly but i love it! kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
